大象传媒

A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Yousra Samir Imran, a British Egyptian writer and author

Good morning.

As an author and journalist who reviews books, I am very fortunate to receive advance copies of upcoming books from publishing companies, in particular Young Adult fiction.

I was recently reading one teenage novel for review and couldn鈥檛 help but laugh to myself at the things the fourteen-year-old female protagonist considered matters of life and death, such as being invited to a party, or who commented on her TikTok video. Without meaning to, I thought, 鈥渨hat petty things they are!鈥�

But then I paused for a moment and thought 鈥� wasn鈥檛 I once a teenager? Weren鈥檛 these things once very serious matters for me too, things that caused me real worry, anxiety and even sadness?

As an adult it鈥檚 easy to look at young people and wonder why it is they get so upset over things we consider small or silly.

The truth is, at each stage of your life, your problems, no matter what they are, feel very real and very big to you, whether it鈥檚 the disappointment a three-year-old feels when being told 鈥渘o鈥� to buying a random object at the shops, or the fear a thirteen-year-old feels when wearing new glasses to school.

This young adult novel served as a good reminder that everyone鈥檚 problems are valid.

Dear God, the Most Compassionate, the Supreme Solver of all problems, please grant us empathy so that we value and do not invalidate other people鈥檚 problems.

Ameen.

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